Tag Archives: Redundancies

RUNNING OUT OF ENERGY

This story was published in our paper version earlier this month. Bristol Energy MD, Peter “High Pay” Haigh, has subsequently left the organisation as we reported yesterday. The reasons for his departure, like everything else about this shit show of a company, are shrouded in mystery.

So it’s farewell, then, to NICK JORDAN, chairman of Bristol Energy, who’s quietly sloped off somewhere or other to do something else instead and left behind a cool £30million tab for council taxpayers to pick up.

Nick has RUSHED FOR THE EXIT just behind Bristol Energy’s finance director, Laura Flowerdew and he’s replaced by Alex Wiseman, one of the few remaining directors at Bristol Energy and the owner of consultants Alex Wiseman Associates.

Meanwhile, staff at Bristol Energy tell us that the Operations Director, Dave Ford, and the Sales Director Phil Biddle were made REDUNDANT last month and they’ve not been replaced. This comes after three heads of department at the company were made redundant over the summer while others have simply DEPARTED without explanation. None have been replaced.

Bristol Energy staff tell us there is very little funding left and that they are being managed by consultants and very inexperienced managers as the whole operation winds down, apparently heading for BANKRUPTCY.

The only question seems to be when will the business go to the wall? Before the mayoral election in 2020 saving council taxpayers further DEBT. Or after the election? To improve the Reverend’s chances of re-election?

And cost the council taxpayer further millions ….

BUNDRED BUFFOON LIES ON CV

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The city council’s not so new HR BOSS, John “Bedwetter” Walsh, described by his own staff as “a mentally disturbed twat”, was appointed in June after a year long stint working the post as an interim on a cool £750 A DAY. Bedwetter, however, has form in Bristol as he also worked as a HR consultant at the council in 2014.

“Recognised as an award winner for the quality of my work, my previous role at Bristol City Council was to lead the Transformation work to deliver £83M savings which was achieved within 12 months,” booms Bedwetter from his CV on Linkedin, which he uses to desperately try to grab MORE lucrative public sector consultancy work.

That’s impressive isn’t it? £83MILLION in savings achieved for Bristol City Council? How did he do that then? What award did he win? “I completed an assignment leading a major change project at Bristol City Council. Tasked with leading a 12 strong team to produce in year savings of £82M through restructuring over 120 service areas within the Council, the targets were delivered within timescales with all service areas being realigned to meet customer requirements,” he assures FUTURE EMPLOYERS.

Very impressive. Not least as Bedwetter’s not sure if he saved £82m or £83m. But when did he do all this amazing work in Bristol? Er, in 2014 implementing a major redundancy programme that was later the subject of an INVESTIGATION in 2017’s Bundred Report into crap financial management at the council.

Bundred says this about Bedwetter’s 2014 programme, “It ASSERTED that workforce reductions agreed up to that point would generate savings with a full-year effect of £21.023m but only £15.882m in 2014/15, £6.118m below the budgeted target.”

So, there NEVER was £83million of savings, just £21million and Walsh only delivered £15million of that. Achieving about 18 per cent of the savings claimed on his CV. Walsh then completes his spectacular LYING CV by claiming “Over 800 employees left the organisation but only 9 were made compulsory redundant.”

Not according to Bundred, “The original estimate was that to generate savings of around 15% of budgeted staff costs a headcount reduction equivalent to around 700fte would be needed. The ACTUAL ACHIEVEMENT being proclaimed as a success was 509fte.”

And even these redundancies failed to deliver much. Bundred says, “A draft audit report issued to managers in November 2015 found that payroll costs HAD NOT in fact been reduced. Auditors believed posts were being deleted that had been vacant for a long time so there was no actual saving and when actual people were released they were often replaced by interims/contractors or casual staff.”

Why’s Rees put an incompetent fantasist who’s already failed once in charge of his HR service?

RAT AND SHIP UPDATE

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MAX WIDE ‘BOY’ - There'll be hell toupee with him in charge...

MAX WIDE ‘BOY’ – Hell toupee when we see what he’s done …

So it’s farewell, then, to Max Wide “Boy”, the city council’s Business Change boss who leaves the organisation at the end of May after two years of hard graft SACKING PEOPLE in return for over £250k! What a deal that’s been for the city.

Former BT salesman, Wide Boy, arrived at the council just two years ago on a £130k a year wedge after a stint controversially PRIVATISING SERVICES in Barnet. His remit in Bristol was to deliver £64m of cuts by 2017.

His final report to the city’s cabinet suggests he’s actually delivered about £33m of these cuts by FIRING around 500 council staff and a further £18m may get delivered if his ‘EFFICIENCY SAVINGS’ pan out as planned. Meanwhile the £12.9m in cuts still outstanding will need to be found by a further 450 REDUNDANCIES according to the cabinet report Wide Boy published shortly before scarpering.

So well done Mayor Fucking Useless and Bristol City Council. You’ve paid someone a quarter of million pounds to sack a 1,000 people and run away before the disastrous results of this policy become clear.

MORE COUNCIL CUTS COMING?

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Sneaked in to the last Cabinet Meeting before the mayoral election was a paper harmlessly entitled ‘Change Board 6 Monthly Monitoring Report’, which just happened to drop in the fact that the council needs to make another £12.9m of CUTS by next April.

The paper meanders over twelve pages, explaining that £33m ‘savings’ have been made and another £18m are in the pipeline before dropping in that “the majority of THE REMAINING £12.9M SAVINGS ARE YET TO BE FORMALLY IDENTIFIED”! It then drifts on to explain that further cuts of £75.3m will be required 2017 – 2020.

But how exactly are these ‘savings’ of £12.9m over the next year going to be made? The main report itself forgets to say. However, on the very last page of the report under the final heading ‘HUMAN RESOURCES IMPLICATIONS’, it says:

“The progress set out in this paper is in line with the Section 188 notice issued in November 2013 … At that time it was estimated that there would be a potential reduction of 971 employees during the three financial years covered bythe MTFS … The organisation restructure that took place during the 2014/15 financial year resulted in workforce reductions of 523 FTE.

“Where further workforce reductions are required we will seek to reach agreement with the recognised Trade Unions on how to mitigate the need to make any further compulsory redundancies.”

No doubt, ENTIRELY COINCIDENTALLY, if you multiply the remaining redundancies available under this three year old notice (448) by an average wage cost at the council (£30,000) you come up with a figure not unadjacent to £12.9m!

With the mayoral election now really taking off, it will be interesting to see how many of the candidates will be committing to these LUDICROUS REDUNDANCIES and how many won’t. It’ll also be interesting to find out how any candidate rejecting these redundancies intends to make these cuts.

Staff at the council, meanwhile, are FLABBERGASTED that their bosses are proposing more redundancies. “The whole place is already overworked, understaffed and in meltdown, “ a worker told The BRISTOLIAN.

“If you want evidence just try phoning us up or accessing any service. It’s an ABSOLUTE FARCE, the public are simply ignored these days as a distraction.

“There’s no staff left to do anything already. Workloads are huge and unmanageable. More staffing cuts are impossible to make. Any incoming mayor who tries more cuts risks CRITICAL DAMAGE to already overstretched services.”

Over to you then mayoral candidates …